Show of hands: Who had ever heard of USAID before this week?

[Ralph Wiggum]

Bueller...Bueller...Bueller....

Even though I've been following politics closely since the early 90's, had never heard of this agency nor all the ridiculous and copious amounts of cash it spends on our dime.

I'd be willing to bet 99% of leftists had never heard of it either. And the cause is Musk Derangement Syndrome, an insidious variant and side-effect of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

[enslaved1]

Along with the derangement showing, the accurate statement that almost no one heard of this arm of the federal government before should be a prime example of the bloat and waste that has needed cleaned up for decades. 

DEI/transgender/alphabet soup operas, comics and initiatives in other countries is not where millions of our tax payer dollars should be going.  I can't fathom how even supporters of such things could justify our insanely in-debt nation spending money on such things. 

[DefiantSix]

Bueller...Bueller...Bueller....

Even though I've been following politics closely since the early 90's, had never heard of this agency nor all the ridiculous and copious amounts of cash it spends on our dime.

I'd be willing to bet 99% of leftists had never heard of it either. And the cause is Musk Derangement Syndrome, an insidious variant and side-effect of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

I have, but then I'm one of those Glenn Beck listening conspiracy theorists.

[Ralph Wiggum]

I have, but then I'm one of those Glenn Beck listening conspiracy theorists.

Haven't listened to Glenn for over a decade, but know where to find him. Used to listen on a local station, and then his peripatetic adventures sent him all over the media landscape. And yes, I know he's now at The Blaze.

I've been a student of the Limbaugh Institute For Advanced Conservative Studies but still can't graduate (by definition) for a very long time. But I still follow a lot of wonderful conservative thinkers and hopefully get a few nuggets of wisdom daily.

[Dark Powers]

I have, I remember years ago watching ads on tv promoting what they did.

[dutch508]

They were all over Iraq in 2005.

 Completely worthless.

[Texacon]

Negative.  Never heard of them and now the more I hear the more agitated I get.

KC

[SVPete]

I had, but not to any great depth. I knew they were basically a foreign aid agency, but that's about it.

They were supposed to help what are now called Third World countries develop, but morphed into a political slush fund for US pols and US activists, with a thin curtain to veil what they have become. Throw Money At It solutions don't and devolve into slush funds.

I've been very slowly wading through an excellent book, When Helping Hurts. I'm not exactly its target audience, which is Christian relief-focused charity organization leaders and church leaders, but it has important points relevant to personal giving, including for non-religious people. One of its big points - perhaps a summary of most of the book - is that throwing $$$$, technology/equipment, food/goods, and even people at a problem without understanding the people who have the problem, their capabilities, and a way for those people to work their way through the problem will accomplish little and will often harm those supposedly helped. That is exactly what US gooberment social programs and foreign aid often/usually do, throw $$$$, technology/equipment, food, etc. at problems. That this sometimes succeeds is obvious, but the harm done in dependency and fraud is probably 2X-4X greater.

[Old n Grumpy]

I had, but not to any great depth. I knew they were basically a foreign aid agency, but that's about it.

They were supposed to help what are now called Third World countries develop, but morphed into a political slush fund for US pols and US activists, with a thin curtain to veil what they have become. Throw Money At It solutions don't and devolve into slush funds.

I've been very slowly wading through an excellent book, When Helping Hurts. I'm not exactly its target audience, which is Christian relief-focused charity organization leaders and church leaders, but it has important points relevant to personal giving, including for non-religious people. One of its big points - perhaps a summary of most of the book - is that throwing $$$$, technology/equipment, food/goods, and even people at a problem without understanding the people who have the problem, their capabilities, and a way for those people to work their way through the problem will accomplish little and will often harm those supposedly helped. That is exactly what US gooberment social programs and foreign aid often/usually do, throw $$$$, technology/equipment, food, etc. at problems. That this sometimes succeeds is obvious, but the harm done in dependency and fraud is probably 2X-4X greater

That is a major problem of going into a Third World country and throwing money in 21st century technology where it won’t work and creates more problems than it solves.

I saw a program on NGOs in Haiti. They would come in and give away free rice and the farmers who were growing rice and had to sell. They couldn’t sell it because they could get rice for free and put the farmers out of business.
Another company would come in and give away free shoes that put the shoemakers and the people who tan the heights to make the shoes so it absolutely did no good

[SVPete]

...
I saw a program on NGOs in Haiti. They would come in and give away free rice and the farmers who were growing rice and had to sell. They couldn’t sell it because they could get rice for free and put the farmers out of business.
Another company would come in and give away free shoes that put the shoemakers and the people who tan the heights to make the shoes so it absolutely did no good

The church I attend supports a missionary couple in Haiti. Their major project is a university that, among other things, has and is training doctors and nurses, Haitian people who are and will be improving the lives of Haitians. That is where they are now, but the start of their project was recognizing the inadequately served need, devising a plan to help Haitians serve the need, building the teaching facility (our church helped with that) (probably with Haitian contractors and workers), finding staff, and investing the years of assistance, teaching, and mentoring to start graduating the needed doctors and nurses. I would not be surprised if they have Haitian professors doing the teaching.

I'm not boosting my church. This is an illustration of doing it right, ala When Helping Hurts, understanding the problem, finding resources among those one wants to benefit, enabling those resources, and setting in motion solutions, i.e. the enabled people. Doing this sort of thing means investing years in the understanding and finding capable people and then enabling them to create the solutions. Years-long projects like that are square pegs that do not fit into yearly throw money at it budgeting round holes.

Trying to veer closer to the thread topic, how is USAID budgeted? Does Congress approve specific projects and grants? Or does it allot $##B for each of various countries that is supposed to address some very flexibly general goal? I suspect the latter, as I cannot picture Congress Critters voting specifically for $##K for an alphabet soup activist group in Ecuador, $###K for mutilation medications and surgeries in Guatemala, or $###K for a 5K women's run in Gaza.